It’s early morning; I am standing in a parking structure above the city. There are colored concrete buildings festooned with their painted advertisements of bygone years surrounding me. The paint now faded and peeling away, falls silently into the vine like streets of Downtown San Diego California. There’s a secret below me, it’s a place where serpents and dragons carouse among giant millipedes, Basilisk, and Bird eating spiders. For some, this place might be a horror show.

I have heard the stories of calcium blocking foods and I know I have listed some above according to other “expert” sites. But let me say this, I have been feeding these types of diets for over ten years now and have yet to ever have a reptile suffer calcium deficiencies in any way. These theories of calcium blocking are based on human standards from the FDA and are not proven to be accurate by any veterinarian studies that I have seen. If fed in moderation and not exclusively these foods will not cause calcium blockage. Are we done now, with that ignorant argument? As a matter of fact if you e-mail me a qualifiedveterinarian’s report I must be able to verify that the Veterinarian in question is actually practicing or has practiced somewhere for more than a year in the United States. The study must state that specifically within a varied diet that includes vegetables and proteins that the calcium blocking vegetables in proportion to the others included in such a diet will cause a calcium deficiency and I will send the first two people to do so $25 via PayPal. If you want to add a calcium supplement of some kind I would use non treated bird cuttlebone and just let it float around the tank. The turtle will break off pieces itself and eat them.

We have seen that these “cute” little turtles are expensive and when all things are considered I would guess that most people doing the right thing and researching before buying will actually pass and get something else which is probably a good thing. I would rather you purchase a different reptile than buy one on impulse only to have it suffer or worse be released into the wild to fend for itself. While this article is thorough it is not intended to be nor should it be considered the only authority. I would recommend as I always do that you read a book or at least another article about Red Eared Sliders Trachemys scripta elegans before purchasing one. I wrote another such article for Associated Content which if you like to read that one as well you can find it by clicking here.

You’re going to drain as much water as possible and then wipe down the entire enclosure with a rag removing any algae and other materials that the filter somehow missed. After that you’re going to add all the water back as well as the turtle and then after the tank is refilled you will add the filter and plug it in. After about ten minutes plug the heater back in the reason for the time lapse is that sudden shocks of temperature drop to the heater may cause it to malfunction. Never for any reason, place your mouth on the siphon to get it started as you may get more than you bargained for with used turtle water.

Dietary needs are met through offering a varied diet of greens, fish, shrimp, worms, and even crickets. In my experience the juvenile turtles will eat just about anything. I prefer feeding frozen foods like krill and live worms such as night crawlers. For greens give a rough chop to Green leaf lettuce, dandelion greens, red leaf lettuce, endive, kale, romaine, and zucchinis. I would make about half cup of this mixture and place that in the aquarium to float around.

You’ll have to remove this daily and I use a fish net to do so as the juveniles will only eat small portions but once you figure out what they will eat its easier to adjust the amounts of foods to their needs. Adult Red Eared Sliders Trachemys scripta elegans diet will be 75% plant matter.

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